Portugal from the inside: Catholic, but not very

The third number is really a pair of numbers that only make sense together. In the 2021 Census, 80.2% of Portuguese aged fifteen and over identified as Catholic; in international surveys of religious practice (the World Values Survey, analysed in 2023 by Georgetown University's CARA centre), about 20% of those Catholics say they attend Mass every week. In other words, four in every five Portuguese Catholics do not practise the religion they declare, and the Pew Research Center's 2018 study adds a figure that struck me: only 44% of Portuguese are absolutely certain that God exists, the highest value in Western Europe and still less than half.

When I arrived in Portugal, after years of work in India and Italy, I thought Italy had prepared me for this, since there too Catholicism is culture before it is faith. But there is a difference I only noticed with time: in Portugal the Catholic religion is not merely heritage, it is national identity, it is in the street names, in every village festival, in the school calendar, in Fátima, and so the Portuguese person who hears of an "evangelical church" does not hear a proposal of faith; they hear something foreign, often Brazilian, and not rarely a "sect". The challenge is not to convince someone that God exists, for most accept that without argument; it is to explain that the gospel is not what that person thinks they already know.

That is why I insist so much on teaching. Preaching in Portugal is, before anything else, patiently explaining what grace means to someone who grew up hearing that salvation is earned, what Scripture is to someone who has never opened it, and what the church is to someone who knows it only as an institution. I often say that many Portuguese grew up hearing about God without understanding the gospel, and that our work is not to add religion to those who already have plenty, but to bring understanding to those who have religion and do not have Christ. That is not done with campaigns; it is done with years of simple, clear and objective Bible exposition in a local community that lives what it preaches.

I do not want this picture to sound like contempt, however, because it is not. The Portuguese are among the most hospitable people I have known, and that same Catholic heritage has left a familiarity with biblical language that in other European countries has already disappeared entirely. The Evangelical Alliance's 2025 report recorded that almost half of new converts were non-practising Catholics, which shows that this "hard soil" is not impenetrable; it simply demands more time, more relationship and more faithfulness than we are used to giving.

If you can pray, pray that Portuguese who call themselves Catholic by tradition may hear, at least once in their lives, the gospel explained clearly by someone they trust. And pray for us, who serve in Cascais, that our preaching be faithful enough not to confuse and simple enough to be understood. In the last article of this series I will speak about the number that most surprises those who look at Portugal from outside: the evangelical church is growing, and it is important to understand how.